Category Archives: First Reads 2015

Review of Getting It Right (Restoration #1), by A.M. Arthur

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Getting it RightI received a copy of A. M. Arthur’s Getting it Right from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Detective Nathan Wolf might just be a junior detective, but he tackles every case with the passion that he lacks in his personal life. A series of failed relationships with women has left him still single at thirty-four—because he’s too scared to admit to his longtime crush on his best friend James.

Dr. James Taggert likes to keep his profession as a psychiatrist separate from his party-animal persona. Known around the gay clubs as Tag, he’s the guy who screws them, leaves them, and never looks back. But James’s drinking is getting heavier, and when bad memories from the past resurface, he’s close to becoming the worst version of himself.

After a drunken blackout ends in a hot and heavy make-out session with his very straight best friend, James has no memory of the steamy affair. But Nathan isn’t sorry for the kisses that James can’t remember. Nathan finally musters the courage to tell James how he really feels, but a life-altering event might force them apart before they can ever be together.

Review:
Well, that was a disappointment from page one…before that even. My first annoyance popped up in the author’s acknowledgements. It was here that it was mentioned thatGetting It Right (Restoration #1), despite being labeled a first in a series, is based on a character from Maybe This Time (Belonging, #2).

I dislike spinoffs because I’m never sure how integrated they are. Sure, this is a stand-alone book, but there are a lot of characters that are obviously from somewhere else and thus basically just dropped in on occasion. Here’s an example, “A small crowd of their shared friends had taken over the waiting room on Doug’s floor. Boxer and his latest boyfriend, Louis. Tori and her husband, Allen. Some of Doug’s co-workers from the store…” None of these characters had been mentioned before this point, there is obvious history here and it’s not from this book or really relevant to this book. This is the sort of thing I avoid.

What’s more, there’s a lot of exposition in the beginning, trying to catch the reader up on some of this stuff. First Elliot shows up, so we have to be told who he is and what his situation is like. Then the reveal and change of his situation has to be explained. But none of it is anything more than a detour from the main story.

But all of the above pales in comparison to my real issues with this book. First, it’s full of angst and ridiculous misunderstandings based on the fact that one of the men made an assumption or jumped to a conclusion and stormed off (or worse, one lied for no conceivable reason). So annoying. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where this was a satisfying turn of events. It was even worse here because it felt like all these darned men did was talk, talk, talk. I’ll admit it was nice to see male characters breaking the ‘men don’t do emotions’ trope and discussing their feelings, but good lord did it get tiring.

But even that’s not my biggy. I’m going to discuss my big problem with this book as general advice to authors. Here it is: If you want to write a PSA, that’s great. The world could probably use a few good ones. But don’t dress it in the guise of fiction and sell it to me as a romance. That’s just bad form. What’s more, if you insist on doing this, at least choose one topic and stick with it, instead of trying to see how darned many you can squeeze into one book.

I’m not kidding, there were a ton of ‘issues’ being addressed here. Everything from the importance of talking out problems and getting a therapist for trauma, to PSTD, alcoholism, addiction, depression, cutting off those who are emotionally harmful to you, grief, regret, infidelity, the importance of condom use, secondary trauma, abuse, (both as a victim and as a recovered abuser), suicide, guilt, not taking responsibilities for others’ actions or choices (as in “It’s not your fault…”), the importance of acceptance, anorexia and cancer. I’m probably even forgetting some that I’ve forgotten between finishing the book and writing this review.

The problem is that it all felt extremely contrived. As if half the events were there more for the object lesson they allowed the author to force on the reader than for any sort of natural development of the plot. For example, at one point a character has a pre-cancerous mole removed and is giving up his job as a landscaper to avoid the sun. But it is one conversation with a side character and that’s it. It plays no role in the book whatsoever. It has no natural place. This is not fun to read!

All in all, though the writing was fine, I even liked the characters, this was a fail for me.

FlashWired

Book Review of FlashWired, by Anna Butler

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FlashwiredI downloaded a copy of Anna Butler‘s novella, FlashWired from Smashwords, probably during last year’s seasonal sale.

Description from Goodreads:
One day, someday soon, Jeeze Madrid was going to wake up and realize just what he’d been passing up; he’d see what Cal Paxton was offering him so faithfully—”Faithfully, Jeeze! Even you can’t deny that!”—and grab it. And they’d finally have what Cal wanted.

Cal Paxton and Jeeze Madrid are the top scouting team on the Pathfinder-class starship, the Carson, on the very outer edge of Earth’s expansion across the galaxy. A Pathfinder’s job is to evaluate planets for colonization. Cal’s and Jeeze’s job is to find the planets for the Carson’s scientists to analyze. 

Cal and Jeeze are wingmen, best friends… and lovers. Cal wants more than a casual relationship but Jeeze, recently divorced, is wary of commitment. When Jeeze is shot down over a planet inhabited by a race Earth has never before encountered, what will Cal find when the Carson can finally mount a rescue mission? Will he ever succeed in persuading Jeeze to take up that offer of hand and heart?

Review:
This was almost really good. After a jerky first few paragraphs it smooths out into a pleasant story. Cal’s love for Jeeze is really sweet and you definitely feel it. Jeeze you don’t get much of a feel for, but he’s an understandable object of affection for Cal. You get the start of an interesting world/universe and even some interesting side characters. Noah and Veronica especially caught my attention.

Unfortunately, however, after all that initial set up, the story peters out in more ways than one. The rescue went FAR too smoothly, involving too many contrivances and conveyances. Then it ends without concluding in any manner. It’s not so much a cliffhanger as a sense of waiting. But all of the threads are left open.

Perhaps this is the first in a series. I don’t know. The writing was strong enough that I’d be willing to follow the story, but I’m not fond of the serial format of publishing a story.

Half-Made Girls

Book Review of Half-Made Girls (Pitchfork County #1), by Sam Witt

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Half-Made GirlsI grabbed Sam Witt‘s Half-Made Girls from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Joe Hark’s job as the Night Marshal of Pitchfork County seems straightforward enough: Find the monsters, kill the monsters. But Joe is married to one of the most powerful witches in Pitchfork, and spends almost as much time keeping an eye on her as he does dealing with occult crimes and shadowy horrors in the rest of the county. Even his children, a little girl who plays host to a rogue’s gallery of strange spirits and a young man with a demonic secret, keep him on his toes. All Joe really wants is a simple life, a bottle of good whiskey, and a break from the horrors of his job. 

But nothing in Pitchfork County is ever simple, and the horrors just keep on coming. Someone’s hung a mutilated girl on a cross in Pitchfork’s most infamous church, dragging Joe into the most challenging case of his career. Joe’s investigation into the ritual murder leads him through the dark underbelly of the Ozarks to the doorstep of a twisted cult of meth addicts. As Joe digs deeper into the mystery, he soon finds himself the target of the murderers and must stop them before they can summon their dark god and destroy everything he holds dear.

Review:
There is a lot to appreciate about this book. In a market that is so often flooded with Marty Stus, finding an alcoholic asshole as a main character/hero is pleasant change. The man is definitely fighting on the side of good, but he is what you might call a ‘blunt tool.’ His methods are violent and heavy-handed to say the least.

In fact, it’s the accumulated resentment of these same tactics that the book is based on. Poor Joe has to learn the difference between shepherding and policing a community and it’s a hard lesson to learn.

Unfortunately, while I really liked the premise of the book and thought the characters were really interesting, I thought the book tended to drag. There is a lot of rambling exposition and just too much gratuitous gore and violence.

Now, I don’t really mind violence or gore; that’s not the reason for my complaint. I’m not even bothered by the fact that the victim (intended or collateral) of Joe’s wrath was as often a small innocent child as a meth addict or evil god. What bothered me was that it just got so darned repetitive. I got tired of reading variations of the same scene. But also, that single pony-trick didn’t allow for very much character development.

This was exasperated by the fact that the community situation that leads to the events of the book has been brewing for 20 or so years and the reader is just told it is what it is. It leaves you feeling like you’ve missed something important, like maybe a first book.

All in all, though I enjoyed the read. I’d be more than happy to pick up a sequel or another book by Witt.